KIEV (AFP) - At least 34 Ukrainian soldiers and civilians were killed on Thursday in one of the heaviest days of fighting in the nine-month separatist war, Kiev and pro-Russian rebel officials said.

The toll included 13 people killed in a trolleybus shelling in the rebel bastion Donetsk and 10 soldiers that Kiev said died across the war zone since Wednesday afternoon.

Rebel commander Eduard Basurin said another 10 civilians were killed in the eastern town of Gorlivka. The pro-Russian head of the separatist Lugansk region said one woman had also been killed in his area.